Archives for March 2009

Plastic bags – be gone

March 19, 2009 by Jen

For years now I’ve been taking my own bags to the supermarket when I do my shop so I don’t have to bring home a million plastic bags. But when it’s come to purchases here and there I usually end up getting them put in some sort of bag – usually plastic – because I have had nothing with me. Until now.

I’ve finally found the answer to being able to put those other non-supermarket purchases in. It’s a nylon fold-up bag and it’s working for me.

This is what it looks like when it’s folded out and believe me you can fit quite a bit of stuff in this.

Nylon fold out bag

It’s really easy to fold up too, and quite quick. Fold it in half lengthways, fold the handles down as shown and then keep folding lengthways and then roll it up.

Folding up the nylon fold-out bag

Once rolled up it’s very compact. I took a photo with my sunnies in the background (sunnies I bought from the Camberwell markets in Melbourne a good 20 years ago for $1) so you get an idea of how big the bag ends up being.

Nylon fold-out bag all rolled up

Isn’t it great? And the great thing for me is that when I get home, I unpack the bag, fold and roll it up and put it straight back into my handbag. This way, it’s there for the next time. Planning Queen, you would be proud because it’s so organised of me.

There’s even more reason and incentive for me to do this because as of early May there will no longer be lightweight plastic bags available here in South Australia. I know this one bag won’t handle my weekly shop, but it does solve the problem of having to get plastic bags occasionally when I buy clothes etc.

And even though other disposable bags will be available in other retail outlets at least I won’t have to use them any longer. My plastic bag bag (and no, it’s not plastic) I have at home should start to get emptier.

Anyway, the nylon bag I’ve shown above in the photos are available at Envirosax. There’s heaps available and they are quite affordable.

PS: I know this all sounds a bit like a sales pitch but it’s all because I think they’re great, not because I’ve been paid in any way to say they’re great.

So I want to know, do you take your own bag/s when you go shopping. If so, how do you remember them?

Serendipity

March 17, 2009 by Jen

The mornings are now getting darker, the nights cooler and the warmer weather is slowly but surely slipping away for another six months or so. At this time of year I look back upon the summer and vaguely remember the two week 40 degree a day heatwave we had and also how often I went swimming at the beach or in a pool. While I’m not a fan of stinging sun hot days I do love the water aspect of summer and this time of year makes me miss it.

Tonight I was thinking about this after I’d run JJ’s bath and he was in it. I carried on with organising dinner and while he’s usually quiet in the bath, tonight he splashed a lot. I’ll tolerate it for a while but if he splashes too much then water goes everywhere and the bathroom floor’s dangerous when wet. So I put up with it for a while and went in and asked him to stop. Out I went and shortly after he started again. When I went back to ask him to stop it again, as now it was more a matter of principle that he hadn’t listened to me, and he could see I was serious as I have that look.

Here’s that look.

Unfortunately, as this photo shows, he’s snapped me when I have that look and I wonder that he doesn’t always take me seriously.

I walked off and he yelled out after me, ‘well I haven’t been swimming for a while’. True, he hadn’t and this is when I reflected back over the summer and wondered if we’d get another swim in before it starts getting too cold.

Later on tonight I spoke to a friend to organise what’s happening this Saturday. We’re playing in a gig together you see, with the ukuleles again you see. She said to come down to her place earlier (the gig’s near her place), and then she mentioned the word swim.

Being the quick thinker I am, I said we’ll come down early enough to go for a swim with you and then come back and we can practise together.

It’s a done deal, and the temperature’s going to be in the high 20s on Saturday so it won’t be a hardship at all. JJ will be rapt.

Sunday stuff

March 15, 2009 by Jen

It’s raining.
My dirty car is in the rain in the hope that some dirt will be rained off.
My son is really annoying me today.
My son lost his second front tooth today. We were at the market and a stall holder we know pulled it out for him. Everyone up to that point had been commenting on it. The tooth fairy will NOT forget this time.
I’ve used the slow cooker to cook my first roast (in the slow cooker that is).
I forgot to buy cucumber at the market today so our salad is cucumberless.
We went to check out some roadworks today. It might be the only chance we get to walk on this road (see photos above).
I was going to garden today but the rain prevented me.
The rain also was a good excuse not to walk the dog.
I like my Sunday sleep-in but it’s a waste of a couple of hours I could always use on a Sunday.
I had to take the rained on clothes off the line and hang them up inside.
I shouldn’t complain about the rain, it might help fill up Torrens lake and it saves me watering on my watering day.

What’s your Sunday stuff? You could write a post and link back here where I can update this post with others’ Sunday stuffs, or just leave a comment.

Missing my son

March 14, 2009 by Jen

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Just about whenever I go out for the evening I end up talking to whoever will listen about my son. I don’t go out that often without him and you’d think that one night off without all thought of him wouldn’t be that hard but it usually doesn’t happen.

Last night was no different. Let me be clear, I don’t talk about him if the person I’m talking to doesn’t know him but when I’m with friends I haven’t seen for a while, they usually ask how he’s going.

For instance, last night, some friends were there who have a swimming pool. JJ was around there a few weeks ago before I came back from my weekend away, for a swim. He left his thongs (flip flops) there. Apparently he was a good boy and quite entertaining. Yep, that’s him.

Although, let me just talk about a not so good night the other night. Actually there was a bit of build up. Last weekend he had this annoying habit of clinging onto me and hanging off me at the most inopportune times – like when we were queuing up for the toilets at Womadelaide. He’s not a two year old any more. He’s a five foot, seven year old and weighs about 30kgs so having this heavyweight hanging off me is a bit dangerous for my knees, and bloody annoying. I’d ask him to stop and he wouldn’t, so the other night I got tough with him. Unfortunately we were out to dinner and while he wasn’t just hanging off me he was misbehaving in a public place and I wasn’t going to put up with it. Luckily the place was relatively empty and he spent a lot of the time sitting at a nearby table by himself. My dad ended up eating JJ’s icecream and there was less fuss about that than I thought but when I take food away from JJ he knows I mean business.

But then we were out again the next night and he was a really well behaved angel and has been great since, so the one night of public embarrassment was worth it.

I digress however. JJ over the last few months has grown up and I’ve loved seeing this change in him. Last year was awful at school for all concerned and he was suspended a couple of times and had no friends and generally felt sad and awful. This year, he’s finding his groove. He’s got a couple of good friends and we’re starting the playdate thing. He handles himself well and I’m proud of him for that, and grateful that he’s feeling a bit better about himself.

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I think the fact that he’s playing soccer and wants to play football (the Australian Rules kind) this year will help him. He’s a very active kid and the team sport thing can only be good for him. As much as I dislike this sport and as much as I will dislike my early Saturday lost to getting up early and driving him around for games it will be worth it I think. I’d much rather sacrifice some sleep for a boy who has something to do instead of hanging at home nagging me to play Playstation.

He’s also started going to Scouts and he’s loving that. That will also be great for his self-esteem and good for some male role modelling – I’m hoping.

So when I go out, I often reflect back on how it’s been and how it is for us, and even though I love nights out with my friends, I love seeing my son again in the morning. Cutey pants. Oh, and can you notice one of his baby teeth hanging by a thread?

This post is for Scribbit’s April write-away contest.

Trying out a digital SLR camera

March 13, 2009 by Jen

Firstly, I wish I could say that I was trying out a DSLR camera I could actually keep. I also want to say that it’s my sister’s camera that I’m borrowing and not one I’ve been given out to try by anyone.

I own an SLR camera that I bought years ago, so it’s not the digital type, and because every shot I used went onto film which I had to pay to process I never experimented like I can with a digital camera. Since that SLR camera my first digital camera was a cheap Kodak 3x optical zoom which was kind of okay for two minutes but I wanted something with more zoom and more features and on impulse one day I bought a Panasonic 12x zoom. This camera has served me really well but I notice the lag inbetween photos quite often and I’d like more options available with different lenses.

Because a decent DSLR camera is costly, I thought I’d see if I could try one out, hence borrowing the camera from my sister. So I’m borrowing her Canon 350D.

When I first got it out the bag I didn’t really know where to start so I got out the manual and had a bit of a read to gain some more understanding. I said a bit of a read – I haven’t devoured the manual.

Things I love about it:

The way it instantly automatically focuses and how obvious that is through the viewfinder.
The way I can keep clicking the shutter button and it takes photos (worth mentioning again).
It doesn’t take long to turn on.
Having more options to take the type of photo you want.

I thought I’d dash outside this morning and take some photos using a different aperture setting. I’m finally starting to understand what effect this has on photos.

The lower the aperture setting is, the less of the image is in focus. This is fantastic if you want that depth of field, blurry background, or bokeh, as it’s called. I only learned that word a few months ago.

So I did some experimenting.

I took two shots of the same thing with different aperture settings. And this is the other thing about digital cameras I love. Back in the days when I used my non digital SLR I’d write settings down so if I particularly liked a photo then I knew how I’d taken it. As you can imagine that was very laborious. After taking the photos below I looked up the file properties in Photoshop and got settings from there.

This is the next door neighbour’s Jasmine which always grows over the fence into my place and desperately needs a prune. With this photo you wouldn’t necessarily know that because I’ve used an aperture setting of 5.0.

The photo below has the same subject but you can see more of the background because the aperture is at a higher setting of 29 and it’s easier to see how much the Jasmine has grown into my backyard from the next door neighbour’s and how slack I am at getting round to doing chores like this. Hmmm.

I did one more example, this time of the clothes line. Aperture setting was 5.6 and focus is on the peg. It looks like I’ve applied a texture to the background but I didn’t.

Here’s pretty much the same photo with aperture of 25. I find it all a bit busy and I don’t know what to focus on.

Obviously you’d want a higher aperture setting if you want more of the photo to be in focus, like a group of people, but for a photo to have a single subject you want to focus on and pop out, a smaller aperture setting is the go.

When I say smaller aperture setting, I mean the number. The smaller the aperture number, the larger the lens (aperture’s) opening is. I know – confusing. The way I see it is that the smaller the aperture number you use on the camera, the less you will be able to focus on in the shot and the larger the aperture number on your camera, more will be in focus on your photograph.

Below are some links to more explanations about aperture settings as I’ve explained it in really simple terms above without mentioning shutter speeds or focal length. I did, however, note that the smaller my aperture (or f-stop) setting, the quicker the shutter speed was. It’s something to do with letting the right amount of light in.

I’m enjoying using the Canon but before I fork out the money for one of these babies I want to try out other brands. When I bought my first SLR camera I spent two hours in the camera shop before I left it with my purchase. I’d say that’s what I’ll do when buying a DSLR too. Although winning one would be ideal.

Connie the escape artist

March 11, 2009 by Jen

For the last two weeks we’ve had Connie staying with us. She’s mum and dad’s dog and they were going to leave her home with someone coming into feed her but I told them she could come and stay with us. Last time she spent time with us was about two months after dad had his stroke and was in hospital and rehab.

Connie is quite small and a bit of blocking of escape holes had to happen around the place so she wouldn’t leave. Below you can see her small stature.

My side gate has a gap between the bottom of it and the ground so we’ve had a block of wood filling up the gap. When we walk Monty in the mornings I’d been leaving Connie inside the house but I noticed that she was scratching the door so I decided to stop that.

The other day when we all went for a walk (sorry, Connie was left at home) we’d carefully blocked off the gate and I thought she’d be fine. When we walked back into the driveway, Connie sheepishly snuck out from under the car. She’d managed to escape, but obviously hadn’t gone far – thank goodness. Mum and dad would have understood but I would have hated to tell them that Connie had run away or that Connie ran onto the busy road and was run over.

Despite her little adventure she was a pleasure to have around. She loves sitting on laps so we’d spend some time together on the couch – only when Monty wasn’t looking.

How could you resist this face?

Building Lego – the highs and lows

March 9, 2009 by Jen

JJ and I have pretty much finished building the Lego City Crawler Crane. It’s definitely had its trials but it’s been a fantastic activity to do together.

Go have a read of Building the crane – part 2 and you’ll discover why what should have been the final post about this is now going to be followed by a part 3.

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